Ford EcoSport SUV sales DOUBLE in 2018 after refinement overhaul

Sales of the Ford EcoSport SUV have soared in 2018 as Ford’s SUVs – EcoSport, Kuga and Edge – account for 21 per cent of European sales.

The Ford EcoSport SUV arrived in the UK in 2014 and should have cleaned up in the market; an on the Zeitgeist compact SUV from the UK’s favourite mainstream car maker. But it didn’t.

The fact was the EcoSport was just too basic for European tastes, with its built to a budget feel putting off buyers who wanted a compact SUV with the refinement of the latest Fiesta, and not an EcoSport which felt like a third-world import.

Ford has since tweaked the EcoSport to make it more appealing to Europe, and the last improvements for Ford’s smallest SUV seem to have transformed perceptions, leading to sales in the UK and Europe for the EcoSport more than doubling in 2018.

In fact, sales of the EcoSport went up by 105 per cent in the first 11 months of 2018 to 104,600 which, coupled with sales of the larger Kuga SUV growing by 27 per cent to 145,300 (and a modest sub-10k sales of the Ford Edge), saw SUVs account for 21 per cent of Ford’s sales in Europe.

Roelant de Waard, Ford Marketing VP, said:

SUV sales are rising faster than any other type of vehicle in Europe, and our comprehensive range of EcoSport, Kuga, and Edge SUVs is attracting car-buyers like never before with bold and sporty styling, and advanced technologies such as Intelligent All-Wheel Drive that help deliver confidence-inspiring driving experiences.

Which is just as well as Ford ends production of cars like the C-Max – with more to follow.